The Long Twentieth Century
U.C. Berkeley economics professor and former Clinton
treasury official Brad DeLong has written a narrative economic history of the
long twentieth century which he argues began in 1870 and ended in 2010 with the
great financial crisis. It was during this time that economic growth exploded
and humanity, for the most part, escaped the Malthusian trap. Along with rising
living standards the long twentieth century brought with it industrial strength
destruction and environmental degradation. He attributes this to the rise of
the giant corporation, the industrial research laboratory and globalization.
However this book differs from Robert Gordon’s “The Rise and Fall of American
Growth” (Shulmaven: My Amazon Review of Robert J. Gordon's
"The Rise and Fall of American Growth") in that DeLong covers far more than technological
developments.
DeLong frames his argument over the differences
between the views of Friedrich von Hayek and Karl Polanyi. DeLong characterizes
Hayek as believing “the market giveth and the market taketh away, blessed be
the name of the market” and Polanyi’s view that the market is made for man, not
the other way around. A long time ago I had an economics professor who would
open each class by invoking the blessing of the market and he was a liberal
Democrat. DeLong’s utopia represents a
merger between Hayek and Polanyi that ends up with a social democratic version
of Keynesian economics. What he is vague
about is that when he discusses the notion of Polanyian rights, which amount to
the belief that citizens are entitled to a host of economic benefits, earned
and unearned with no real limiting factors. DeLong is a fan the European
entitlement state, but he fails to mention that most of the entitlements are
funded by regressive payroll and value added taxes that would be a very rough
sale in America.
Where the book is good, he has excellent vignettes on
the lives of real people who were making history such as Nikola Tesla and Leon
Trotsky. He also goes into the horrors of “really existing socialism” in both
its Russian and Chinese forms. In that sense DeLong is a true social democrat.
He is also very good in discussing how the 1970’s inflation undid the Keynesian
consensus and led to the neo-liberal order which then collapses as deregulated
financial markets were consumed by a fire of their own making.
What DeLong leaves out is that much scientific
progress came outside of the organized industrial laboratories. He gives no
credit to governmental and university labs, and he leaves out the garage work
of Bill Hewlett and David Packard, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs. These folks were
tinkerers in the tradition of the early Thomas Edison. Further for some reason
he leaves out of his discussion the role of the oil industry whose products
fueled the mobility of his long twentieth century. Without the oil industry
little of what he discussed would have occurred.
DeLong has written an excellent narrative history of
our era; just take his politics with a few grains of salt.
For the full Amazon URL see: The Long Twentieth Century (amazon.com)
